MFBAB

I always Love your perspective Paul!! Also, on the Full moon deal, as scaleface pointed out, maybe more guys are fishing during those periods... Also, something that occurred to me that probably accounts for that "marginal" advantage that *Hannon, etal try to play up, is that during the spring there really is a big advantage to the Full Moon (IMO and supportable by some data referenced above), and that is probably enough to skew the numbers slightly higher for the whole year. *I went back and re-read Hannon's Moon section in "Big Bass Magic", and he clearly cherry-picked a block of years (8 year period) for his record-catch results, and as I said before, it was all species, not just bass. It just smacks of marketing to me. It's like the X files, I want to believe

I like to catch a few of the seminars during the Spring Classic if I have the time, but it's very close for me so no trouble to get there.

I think these could easily be consolidated, "creeks and small waters forum" or something like that. I'm surprised at how divided people are on this. I honestly see it as a slam dunk.

I'm surprised you're against this RW? BTW, have you checked the forecast later this week? Let's go fishing!

I just did a search for the word "pond" within thread titles. 197 results going back 2 years (1 topic per 3.5 days), and that's just the word "pond", not bank or anything else. And only in the title. I would expect that the activity would be much greater if there were a dedicated forum for this, and also, from an organizational standpoint, it would be so much easier to keep up with the threads if they were under one roof.

That's what the thread I linked in the first post is, and it's a completely inefficient way of doing this anyway.....and it's not the same deal as catt's thread. His thread is in a regional fishing forum, where it belongs. You can't have a forum for each specific lake, Pickwick, Guntersville, Falcon, etc...If people want to talk about those lakes, then start a thread in the appropriate region and go nuts. Bank/Pond Vs. General Bass fishing in a boat on reservoirs is a totally different comparison. On the bank: - Totally different angles (ever try to fish an outside grass edge from the bank?) - Limited to fewer presentation options (1-2 rods, a small box of lures) - Limited to a much smaller and more specific area (1 pond, not a whole lake) - Far less options in terms of moving or finding different patterns, you have got to hunker down and fish what's in front of you. You don't get to just move on to another pattern as the day goes on. - Always fishing Uphill, no way to move off the bank and try various casting angles. You can use some of the same baits, but not in all of the same ways. - Obviously, a lot of baits w trebles or snaggy baits are off the table because you will lose them Comparing bank fishing to boat fishing is like comparing walking to driving, IMO. I know this isn't going to happen, I'm just making the point clear that there's not a good reason why

I respect your opinion, but IMO pond fishing is talking about generally small bodies of water, often boats aren't even allowed on them. Clearly hundreds of other people are making this distinction as well, due to the huge number of Pond specific threads on the forums. I'm just not seeing a down side to adding a forum for these topics, I honestly believe it would be a huge help to a lot of our users. And the fact that it is brought up all the time, I mean, a lot of people want this. We literally have "custom rod building forum", "fishing resume forum", and "bass club forums" here. By your logic, the rod building one should be in tackle making, the resume one should probably not even exist, and the club one should be general bass fishing because it's all just bass fishing when we get down to it, right?

I know this has been discussed in the past on the Bank Walker Thread, but that was really just trying to consolidate everything into one thread, which is really a pretty disorganized way to do it-you'd never be able to find specific topics withing 1 mega-thread. Do a search for "Pond" or "Bank" fishing and hundreds of threads will come up, there always seem to be several pond threads going at any given time. I think it would be great if a new forum were started and these threads could be consolidated there. It would be so convenient to have everything in one place, and it truly is one of the most active topics on the boards, and bank/pond fishing is a distinctive topic from "General Bass Fishing", or "Fishing Tackle", at least IMO. Anyone else? I'm setting up a poll for this too, so please cast a vote!!

This is a pretty nice free website for viewing Navionics Maps: http://webapp.navionics.com/#@10&key=se~rE%60rwdP

There are a few FREE seminars coming up next w/end at BPS - These are at the Sycamore View Store: Local Pro Fishing Seminars: February 19th: 7 p.m. - Bladed Jigs: Learn How and Where to Fish Bladed Jigs for Your Next Big Catch. February 20th (sat) and 21st (Sun): 11 a.m. - New to Fishing? Learn All You Need to Know to Get Started. 2 p.m. - Understanding Baitfish and Their Seasonal Movements. 4 p.m. - The Strategy of Successful Kayak Fishing. Women's Fishing Workshop (Free Tumbler to the first 25 women to attend): February 20th at 1:30 p.m.

I think latitude dictates that. In other words, sunrise time where I am and say an hour or 2 hours east will be different by a little. This is important for hunters to know because the legal shooting light times will vary The Solunar charts are based on the tide cycles (2 per day), and of course the lunar cycle which is 29.5 days. This cycle just repeats over and over, if that ever changes we'll have bigger problems than fishing

Sorry, I was being a smart-a** As others have said, this subject has been discussed many, many times here in the past. I see you are new, I recommend spending some time w the search feature, it will be worth your while. Just pick a subject and go nuts, there is a massive wealth of fishing info here. Welcome!

It's about time we got to the bottom of this

I agree. And also, you can manipulate statistics to paint almost any picture you want if you're good at it. Now, another one of these debates, the one about fishing midday goes against that theory (more fishermen) though. I've seen a good deal of data and also a lot of anecdotal references indicating that a disproportionately high percentage of larger bass are caught in the midday slot. There is no doubt that fewer fishermen are out at midday, but one good example is the BASS Lunker Club data set with several thousand entries of 10 lb LMB and 6+ Smallies, which indicates that the highest reported time slot for qualifying bass in their records is the 11 am hour! The most productive Lunker months by far are also the spawning months, Feb-April, which are the ones that I believe are the most tied in with the Full moons influence as well. I dunno, paralysis by over-analysis starting to set in, I think I need to go fishing

^^This. Current Conditions. Water Color, Light, Wind, Current, Type of Lake, Seasonal Patterns, Grass or no Grass?, Bottom Composition?, Bait?.....you can make this list as long as you want to, and it will seem complicated at first, but if you start looking at the daily conditions and keeping notes, it doesn't take too long before most of what's on this list (as applicable to your fishing situation) is just running in the background of your mind as you fish, on auto pilot. Even the studies that suggest that the Full and New moon produce most of the World Records or biggest fish (Hannon and others), they all seem to break down when you look at the data with even a tiny bit of scrutiny. You see the words New and Full Moon, and something like 65% of the records are caught within 3 days of each. You instantly think, "This is simple, 65% of the fish are caught on just those 2 days"...But if you think it through, they said 3 days before and after each, so now we're talking about 3+1+3 (Full), and 3+1+3 (New) = 14 days. A lunar cycle is 29,5 days, so we're talking about basically half of the cycle (47%) produces 65% of the fish, which is really not that big of a deal, and it should also be noted that these studies always consider lots of other species besides bass, which to me weakens the case even further. And then, Hannon was hawking a calendar too, so there's that. I'd probably like it a little more if it weren't tied to a marketing scheme In the end, you might be able to argue for a slight advantage to fishing the Full and New, but it's negligible at best and it will always be overpowered by current conditions anyway, so I go with that. And for what it's worth, I do absolutely believe that the Solunar periods have an effect on the fish and the bait, it has been proven in labs that they act differently during the high and low tides, etc... An exception to my argument? The spawn. They all hit the bank on the full moons in the spring

I'd bring 3 rods right now: - Rattle Trap - Colorado Blade Spinnerbait - Flipping Jig The water temp will still be in the 40's but they don't go too deep there. You just have to cover water, it's fairly silted in so there are a lot of large flats with limited structure or cover. These are the areas to hit with the trap, I'd probably keep the boat in 5-8' of water paralleling the bank about a cast length out. The other two baits are for whatever cover you can find along the main lake or within about the first 1/3 of the creek arms off of the main lake. Throwing a Squarebill or Spinnerbait along the rip-rap wouldn't be a bad idea either. Good Luck!

That is awesome, it was pretty cold yesterday too!! It should be fine, as others have said, there are a lot of ol one eyes swimming around out there Post a pic if you took one! Also, could you read anything on the tag, like TWRA or something? I've never caught a tagged bass in the ponds before.

Not my chart, not made for the TN river. I, like Catt, have caught a lot of fish my whole life without ever hearing of this chart, which is actually almost as old as me I, however, also like reading about fishing, and I like looking at seasonal guides and things of that nature, especially during the down time in the winter, I started this thread to ask Tom what this chart was about, apparently the timing was bad because he is sick. Have fun with it guys, I'm out.

For TN guys, there's a really good one covering most of the reservoirs statewide: The Compleat Tennessee Angler You don't have to be from TN to benefit from this, it's basically a seasonal guide to fishing TN for multiple species, but they go into a lot of detail w guides and fishermen in the area about techniques that will translate to a lot of other water across the country. This pic shows about 2/3 of my fishing books, the others are scattered around the house. The magazine pile is really embarrassing

Careful, my wife's whole family lives down there - if it's b/w Baton Rouge and N. O. they pretty much got it covered :):)

Tom has stated (in this thread and/or others about this info): - Not a Panacea - Written primarily about Cali Lakes (which he has slap killed em on up to 17 lbs. for decades by the way) - Written 40 years ago ,,,,It might not be tailor made for my waters in TN, but I'm still listening. And did I mention, it's cold here! ....But, to answer your original question, I think that person wouldn't be a person at all, but possibly a robot or an alien sent here to deplete our reservoirs of bass!!

Tom, I made a chart version of the seasonal info that sort of fits my eye better. What do you think? I always like looking at these seasonal guides, especially during the winter. KVD made a good one http://www.bassmaster.com/vandams-6-season-bass-guide , Rick Clunn also made a very useful one in the book "More Secrets of the Bass Pros" by Tim Tucker, the Book Knowing Bass and the In-Fisherman Handbook of Bass Strategies are some other sources for those who are interested.

In the first qualifier Pauliniak (sp) got into a deep school and wore them out on topwater of all things (brown and green fish). He got a big lead early, but almost got run down by a couple of guys fishing shallow and/or marinas. He did hold on though, and turned in the best weight of the 4 qualifiers so far - close to 30 lbs., but 2nd that day was mid 20's too (Brent Chapman), both by far the best weights of the tourney so far.

So, the 3 sections (Moon, Sun and the White Sections) are independent of one another? 1 - The outer white sections and the first colored ring (Annual Rhythm) are just the basic seasonal tendencies? 2 - The Sun Phase and Daily Rhythm are basically just for any day - Sunrise and Sunset are the active period? 3 - The Middle 2 rings are showing the active period before and after the new and Full Moon? But nothing related to the daily solunar periods, right? Is this basically what it's showing? I guess I was trying to figure out how everything in the chart related on any given day, I think I was just looking at it wrong before. It seems to be more of a Macro view, is this right?

Tom, You mentioned the Cosmic Clock in another thread the other day. I've looked at it before, but I don't really understand how to read it. Would you mind giving a quick tutorial? Are we supposed to print it out and make layers so it can be spun around so the moon phase/time of day match the season? I'm genuinely interested, but I just didn't get it - I even read an article you wrote about it on another forum Thanks, Rob